Shoot in My City, Abigail Ekue Photography

For the second half of 2016 (how is it the 2nd half of the year already??) and beyond, I will be combining my work and travel a lot more!


So I've a gotta question for you: 

Which cities should I visit for private photo shoots?

Abigail Ekue Photography in Atlanta and Las Vegas

shot in Piedmont Park, Atlanta GA

In December, Abigail Ekue Photography will be in Atlanta and Las Vegas!



From December 1 - 3, I am booking private portrait and nude shoots in Atlanta and Gwinnett County. All shoots done "on-location" meaning I come to you or we can meet at a location you'd like to do the shoot, indoor or outdoor.


Limited slots available for the "Show Them Who You Are", "Me, Myself & I" and "The Darker Side of Lust" packages. Book your shoot via my calendar by clicking here.

Why Did I Start Native Creative Concierge?

Native Creative Concierge LLC - curated private excursions in New York City,
Abigail Ekue, CEO & Operator

I answered a media request from CEO Blog Nation where they were seeking stories from entrepreneurs on why they started their business. My submission wasn't published, so I'm sharing it here!


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"Where should we eat tomorrow night?" "Do you know which way is Madison Avenue?" These are questions I field on a regular basis from friends and strangers alike. It was a natural progression to start Native Creative Concierge, my service where I could provide firsthand experiences as answers to those questions.




I knew I didn't want to go back to a 9-to-5 office job and I needed an income. As a New York native, I know there's more to the city than Manhattan and the publicized tourist attractions that can also be tourist traps. There's so much more to NY than Times Square! -- I've adopted that catchphrase to combat the line of thinking that if someone visits those attractions, they've visited NY.

Best Cities for Tour Guides -- My 2 Cents

{The} Native Creative Concierge was interviewed for an article on ValuePenguin - Best Cities for Tour Guides. Although New York isn't that high up on the list, I was able to share the reason why I started Native Creative Concierge and give a little insight into what I include on my excursions.

“...there was a need for travelers to experience more of New York City outside of the usual tourist attractions. As a native New Yorker, I am able to provide that...

Client interested in Mediterranean cuisine? End the tour with a stop at an upscale restaurant and receive personal attention from the head chef...”

My First Solo Trip to Las Vegas

"You're the only person I know who goes to Vegas with plans to do all this other stuff besides the casinos," said my brother as I rattled on about what I was gonna do once I got to Las Vegas.


Don't get me wrong; give me a chunk of money and a hot streak and I'll gamble the night away and roll around naked in my winnings in the morning. I wanna be a whale; flying into McCarran International Airport on a private jet, driven to my villa and eat meals prepared by a personal chef.

But I can't resist the call of the other side. What's down that block? What's down that hole? What happened here 40 years ago?

So off I went to Las Vegas, camera in tow. Yes, I did The Strip and didn't care if I looked like the biggest tourist dork gazing upward most of the time and taking landmark selfies (1, 2, 3, 4). But I also had plans to walk along desert roads, experience the Las Vegas art scene, drink where the locals drink and channel my inner Danny Ocean.

Lower Manhattan Tuesdays

Native Creative Concierge™ approved.

(Source)

Lower Manhattan -- that area south of Chambers Street that many only equate with courthouses, "Ground Zero", Century 21, Wall Street and being a ghost town after 5 PM or on the weekends -- is now home to the promotion Lower Manhattan Tuesdays presented by the Downtown Alliance for New York. It will run every Tuesday from May 27 to September 30.


Sign up to get your Redemption code for special deals and promotions to use at participating businesses. You can also get a promo code with 9/11 Memorial Museum tickets.

A few of my recommendations:

Stone Street Tavern -- A friend chose this restaurant as the site of my birthday dinner a few years ago. Surf and turf was enjoyed by all. The location is a draw too as I'm a sucker for cobblestone, windy streets that bring me back to Old New York.


The Iron Horse -- skip Hogs and Heifers and go here. That is all. Oh, get on the giant swing too. And I know this is about Tuesdays but if you go on Sundays and buy a drink you get a free burger. Ok now, that is all.


City Sports -- their promo is for the Run Club but while you're there buy yourself a pair of supportive and ergonomically-correct sneakers for the miles that you'll cover and track on your pedometer that you'll also buy at City Sports.

South Bronx Culture Trail

 

 

This week it was announced that Casita Maria Center for Art & Education, City Lore and Dancing in the Streets were partnering to create the South Bronx Culture Trail. According to the Associated Press, they are currently in the process of identifying culturally significant sites which will be designated with physical markers. 

I "got my start" in the South Bronx (940 Grand Concourse!) and then came back during junior high and high school. It will be great to learn more about the living history I may have been oblivious to as a kid and to be able to share it with Native Creative Concierge clients. I have a family visiting next month that requested a stop at Yankee Stadium. I'll include surrounding areas during their private excursion. One of the landmarks that will be highlighted on the South Bronx Culture Trail will be 1520 Sedgwick Ave where DJ Kool Herc created hip hop in the early 70's.

There's So Much More To New York Than That

Native Creative Concierge client snapping photos at Fort Washington
during our half day excursion
(Source) 

A friend recently shared a commercial by an Israeli company in which he appears. Two things jumped out at me when I watched the ad - the role he was cast in and the product the commercial was for.

Le Flâneur Et Son Pain

Re-working of Paul Gavarni's Le Flâneur from 1842 by Spenot

Here's the latest vignette I wrote for my French lessons. I started early last month with I met Anthony Bourdain. He was bound to inspire me. A few years ago a friend was reading a book about a wandering man, le flâneur. It's stuck with me ever since, even if the term isn't a common one in French (according to my French buddy). My imagination continues to flourish. My French is... coming along.

Dear Mr. Anthony Bourdain

Of all the sidewalks in all the world he showed up on mine.


It was a bright, Thursday afternoon and I was heading back towards Columbus Circle from CBS Broadcast Center. As I passed my old stomping ground, the Time Warner Center, I looked up from my phone and there he stood.


He was there. Nerves bubbled up inside me but I didn't stop walking, I didn't alter the course. I knew I had to say something. Never mind that I was carrying two man grooming products in my hand. He moved his cell phone from his ear just as I got to him.

A Random Moment with TastyKeish

TastyKeish, media personality, professional hobbyist

 

When I was invited to participate in A Monthly Bondfire's Ladies Night in 2009, I met her backstage to go over my place in the line-up and the pronunciation of my name. I remember she was wearing "sexy time pants". Since then we've become fast friends over boot camps and rum cake and gchat brainstorming sessions. She still amazes me with the extent of her DIY life. No stranger to the interview, TK!, as I affectionately call her, sat down with me after a Rise Up Radio show on a Friday night. Then we hit the streets.

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My name is TastyKeish, also known as my regular name, Keisha Dutes. My craft… media personality, professional hobbyist. I have lots of hobbies that I enjoy and I also enjoy making money off of them. So radio, video, web and all hobbies that don’t fit into that circle.

Great Finds from bookbook

 

 Went to a bookstore today and bought 3 books. Topics: travel, food and sex. Hey, you love what you love.

I tweeted that on Saturday evening.


It felt good to be in a bookstore, to see the covers, to read the blurbs, to flip through the pages. I was at bookbook on Bleecker. These are the 3 titles I walked away with.

Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a rogue travel writer by Chuck Thompson

The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones by Anthony Bourdain

Bonk: The curious coupling of science and sex by Mary Roach

A Random Moment with The Hired Gun

The Hired Gun, Hip Hop MC, writer, critic, arts educator

We totally dated ourselves when we realized we knew each other since the heydays of Myspace. Yes, that Myspace. Since then we've been connected through the music and poetry circles and the occasional hot button race issue. At the Ace Hotel, on a Saturday afternoon we discovered we were neighbors in Brooklyn, kindred in the artist lifestyle.

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My name is Mikal Amin Lee AKA The Hired Gun, Fresh Roots Music, Nomadic Wax, Urban Word. I am a Hip Hop MC, artist, writer, cultural critic and arts educator. I’ve been based in New York City now for the last 13 years—born and raised in New Jersey—been reppin’ Brooklyn since 2000, officially. Unofficially, I’ve been reppin’ Brooklyn since Big Daddy Kane in 19- [muffles his voice] I’m not gonna say when cause I look very young.

As an MC and artist, what is the message behind your music?

My influences have been people like Chuck D, KRS-One, Brother Jay, The Native Tongues, Freestyle Fellowship and regardless of the political message or the artistic message, the thing that I took from them and what I try to carry on is I want you to think. I want you to ask questions. That’s what my music is—it’s to inspire thought, it’s to provoke thought—what’s going on with you, what’s going on with the community around you, what’s going on with the world around you, why are things the way they are, where do you fit in all of that. So that’s really what my music’s about regardless of what the topic or the concept or the theme is ... I’m not afraid to say I love Black people, so I try to celebrate us as much as possible in my music and I try to show a different angle because I’m not what this country or what people think are stereotypical of us so I try to represent that as well in my music.

A Random Moment with Robin Glasser

Robin Glasser, author

We were both on the bill for a literary reading event in 2010. She enjoyed my excerpt on fellatio, I was sucked into her excerpt on being seduced in Paris. She informed me about Word Up bookshop the opportunity to have copies of my book sold there and we later shared the stage at an event she organized. Then along came a nude young man and my camera. On a sultry Saturday, we met in Chinatown while passersby listening in on our conversation.

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My name is Robin Glasser, like Batman and Robin, R-O-B-I-N, I’m not fancy, and I’m a writer. I’m an author. I have one book called Men At Work, which is fully illustrated and it actually comes with a guarantee to put twinkles in your eyes and sparkles in your pants. Somebody gave me a video camera to make little movies and I put them on YouTube and the very first poem they have now taken off so I’m at war with YouTube. My other book is My Life as a Concubine which is actually a roman à clef—I lived in Paris for 3 years—I changed the names to protect the guilty. Besides a love story, there’s recipes, there’s tips of France and great places to visit. I’ve just finished my third book, The Brain Exchange, which I call a "Sex-Fi" and the punchline is, “If you could walk in someone else’s shoes, would they fit?” It takes place in the not-too-distant future and the latest thing is instead of taking a vacation to an exotic land you can actually exchange brains and take a vacation in someone else’s body. And the whole plot revolves around a bodybuilder and a super plus size woman and what ensues.

Been There, Done French

I was talking to a guy about travel. Naturally, Paris came up in the conversation. I told him it would've been great if I had visited Paris in my 20's but that I was also glad to be going now as a full-fledged adult. I'd have a better handle on the language, and what to expect from the locals (namely the men). I won't be seduced, instead I'd choose the man I want and then let him think he seduced me.


The guy I was speaking with isn't from NY so I asked him if he'd heard of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case (DSK is now counter-suing the hotel maid he is accused of sexually assaulting). He had vague knowledge of the case and I explained to him what I'd learned, while researching the DSK scandal, about the sexual entitlement French men seem to exhibit -- the séducteur. How much of that is actually "fah real", he asked.


Let me share the story I shared with him.

My Afternoon With The Italian Architect

I spent a few hours with a 33 year old architect from Milan. He responded to an ad I posted online; he was in NY to learn English and wanted to meet me. I chose the time and place where we met in Brooklyn on a gorgeous afternoon.


We walked and talked. He's a professor of architecture in Italy. He taught me a lot about the history of NY architecture; he's very knowledgeable and passionate about his work. It was strange for him to now be the student (he's taking English classes during the day) and have homework.  He's the only Italian in his class; the majority of the students are Spanish-speakers. He was a bit disappointed because as he put it, he's close to Spain when he's home. He didn't want to cross an ocean for more Spanish. I mentioned that it was interesting that the Spanish-speaking students in his class were all European not from Latin America.


Throughout the afternoon he shared his take on the New York culture (and American culture, in general) that he's been exposed to and I pointed out local points of interests all while teaching or correcting his English when necessary. The prayer alarm blared as we passed a mosque. Sitting outside were two woman wearing burqas and niqabs. A few blocks away he asked about the America view of Muslims after 9/11.

Tastes Like Travel

The universe places you exactly where you can achieve what you asked for.

                                                                                - @mightymoebetta

The Law of Attraction is so powerful it's scary. My need to travel must be strong enough that the Universe is listening. Paris (and France in general) is everywhere I turn. I joke about my willingness to do unspeakable things to get to Brazil in 2014 (behind every joke...). Recently jobs I've applied for are perfect for me and would give me the opportunity to travel and/or work with internationals. I don't have the means to travel at the moment so I'm satisfying my wanderlust in NYC. It's uncanny--the new people I'm meeting are natives of countries on my must-see list and people who have visited them already. When I finally make it to Paris, Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Italy, etc. it will be new to me but I'm being prepped, appetite kept whet, constantly gaining new insights.


All signs point to my inevitable travel. Sometimes I swear it's all too perfect. This past month has been plotted like a movie--full of foreshadowing and "coincidences".

Talisman Chill Out at the Southwest Cookout

Talisman plays at the Southwest Porch at Bryant Park

Last night, I took a trip to Spain, the south of France and stopped over in Italy.

I was at the Cookout at the Southwest Porch at Bryant Park located in the southwest corner of the park (40th and 6th for those of you who need specifics). The cookout was sponsored by Southwest Airlines and they served fancier but still tasty versions of burgers, hot dogs, pork belly sandwiches and drinks from ’wichcraft.

I opted for a burger served on chiabatta bread. My guest's burger was a bit too rare for her tastes and she requested a new one, well done. On the second go-round, she was more than satisfied. They also served cookout staples, coleslaw and potato salad. We also munched on ancho chile and lime popcorn. Southwest Airlines will be hosting a weekly cookout at the Porch all season long! Will I be back? Oui. Care to join me?

Connect The Dots

Keeping in line with my Reboot and priming for travel...

A long-time friend took me out for Korean last week. She took me to one (of two) of her favorite spots. Ok, first, I think that's a great honor when someone takes you their favorite place.

I should also tell you that I'll be all over the place in this post.

So we met at Kunjip and did a lot of catching up over pipping hot stone bowls of bibimbap and steamed eggs, radishes, dried fish, miso soup... I should've taken a photo of the spread, because I can't remember what else was served. I had the camera in my bag, by the way.

The windows of the restaurant were covered with flyers and posters but from where I was sitting, I could see through one of the spaces to the street outside. I did a double take. Is that the Eiffel Tower? Does that say 'Paris'? 

Primed At Pacifico

Still feeling the inspiration from Friday's lunch date with a friend. And ready to travel the world. Once I get the "how" figured out...


I feel as though this should be more of a story, so I'll paint the picture for you instead of jumping right in to artist-creative-soul-wanderlust vibe of the lunch.


There he was on the corner of Jay and Willoughby. He stood in the sun wearing a fitted leather jacket and Ray Bans. I could tell he was making sure he was on the right corner from the way he kept looking at his phone then up at the street signs. I was wearing "Little Red", so I was easy to spot.